Lake Erie Crushers

The way the wind was blowing out of All Pro Freight Stadium before the game, the expectation was that a lot of balls would be sailing off the bat. Instead, they were sailing out of the hand of WildThings third baseman Chris Costantino. The two-base error brought home the first run of a circus-like third inning. The Crushers (35-30) added two more runs and went on to shutout the WildThings (30-35) 5-0.

During the seventh inning, the fire alarm at All Pro Freight Stadium blared through the building. It was a little bit late, but undoubtedly it was triggered by the Crushers' offensive fire power in their 8-3, series-opening win against the WildThings (30-34). Despite falling behind 2-0 in the top of the first, the Crushers (34-30) lit up the scoreboard with seven runs in the first five innings.

Coming out of the all-star break, the Crushers are now 7-5, and they continue to push their way up the East Division standings. They are now just two games behind Southern Illinois for third place, and five games back of the division lead. The IBI's Kyle Ferrara catches us up on the week that was for the Crushers....

Lake Erie treaded water Monday in Evansville by winning game one of a double header and dropping game two. In game one, the Crushers got a strong performance out of starter Matt Smith. Smith has been having an up and down season so far this year, but Monday on the road he was almost untouchable.

Lake Erie's offense was shut down Friday night in Avon as the Crushers (31-28) fell to River City 3-1 in another rightly contested match. As things heat up for the second half of the year, the Crushers, who sit in fourth place in the east, fell behind a full two games behind Southern Illinois despite getting a solid outing from Alex Kaminsky on the mound.

Dave Middendorf deserved a shiny trophy for his performance on the mound Thursday night, but all he got was a pie in the face. Middendorf (8-5, 2.77) pitched a complete game, five-hit shutout as the Crushers defeated the River City Rascals 1-0 for their third-straight win.

For some reason, even after Tuesday's 17-inning marathon, the Miners hadn't had enough of their stay at All Pro Freight Stadium. Seth Granger, meanwhile, was tired of hosting them. He sent them packing with a walk-off, RBI single to left-center field. The walk-off gave the Crushers a 3-2 victory, pulling them to within a game of third place in the East, behind the very Miners team they just took two of three from.

39 combined runners were left on base. That’s the key number from Tuesday night turned Wednesday morning’s game between the Crushers and Miners. Both teams blew numerous chances to score, before the Crushers finally took advantage in the bottom of the 17th inning to win 5-4.

Lake Erie (28-26) rebounded from Saturday's no hit loss with late 2-1 victory over the Grizzles on Sunday. Coming off of the team's worst loss of the season, the Crushers regrouped on the mound and at the plate to take the series from Gateway.

The first half of the season saw the Crushers achieve a record of 25-25, which isn’t a bad mark considering they were as many as six games under .500 in the month of June. The IBI's Kyle Ferrara gets us set for the second half of the Crushers season.

Lake Erie fell a few feet short of a four game sweep of the Frontier Greys Sunday in Avon falling 3-2 in a defensive battle. All star Dave Middendorf just didn't have it in him as he made one crucial mistake in his four innings of work on the mound.

After Greys starting pitcher Joe Zeller struck out Craig Hertler for the first out of the game, Greys catcher Chris Kay was so excited that he accidentally spiked the ball into the ground in front of him trying to throw down to third. It was bad, just like the Greys now 18-32 record. But the Crushers did exactly what has to be done when playing against last place teams. They beat the Greys 4-1 behind a dominant starting pitching performance from Matt Rein.

For the first time this season, Lake Erie cleared the .500 mark by winning both seven inning games of a double header against the Frontier Greys Friday night in Avon. Winning game one in a pitchers duel 2-1 with reliever Mickey Jannis on the hill, the Crushers held on to the momentum for a 7-2 thrashing in the second game.

The Crushers quest to reach the .500-mark before the All-Star break will have to be completed another day. After winning on Wednesday afternoon to improve to 23-23 on the season, the Crushers lost to Wild Things 3-1 on Thursday night, dropping to 23-24. Matt Smith was hung with the loss, but he pitched a quality start. He completed six and two-thirds innings, giving up three runs on eight hits and striking outs six batters. The loss dropped him to 2-3 on the year.

Craig Hertler drew a leadoff walk in the first and third innings and came around to score both times as the Crushers went on to beat the Wild Things 6-4. The Crushers have now won two in a row have reached an even 23-23 on the season. The loss was Washington’s seventh in eight games.

The Crushers quest to hurdle to the top of the standings continued on Tuesday night, and Craig Hertler supplied the gas in the 4-2 victory over the Washington Wild Things. The Crushers improved to 22-23 with the win, and moved ahead of Washington into fifth place in the East. Washington dropped to 22-24.

Available IBI Books

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